Tag: writing challenge (Page 1 of 4)

The Stomp of Hope

February 11, 2025 / fionagreywrites / 5 Comments

I’ve been offline for with a bit of a broken wing, so this was written primarily using dictation – and the patience I used to have before correcting most of the errors. Bear with me, as I’m sure some slipped through!

The now-familiar stomping rattled the windows. it was a sign of their ability to endure even the strangest of habits over time that Helga didn’t look up from her hardcopy newsletter.

“Best finish quickly,“ George said. He kept an oblique eye on the window, standing carefully angled and behind the sheer curtain to track the bot’s progress.

“This last bit turned out to be more important than I expected,“ she said absently. “I think I get it now.“

“You’d better,“ he replied, barely audible above the growing thumps and shudders. “Burn it. Burn it now.“

The crackle of flames had also become a part of their morning ritual, along with makeshift tea from whatever edible herbs she could forage from the nearby park and accompanied by the heavy beat of the war bot’s march.

This morning, the new rituals were also accompanied by a distinct rip of paper.

“What are you doing?” he hissed under his breath. She joined him at the window scrap of paper still in hand. Helga linked their hands, and he felt the tiny scrap stick against his sweaty palm.

She waited for the noise to fade as the monitor bot passed to the next street.

“You need to see this too. If something happens to me, this knowledge needs to be passed on.”

George had spent the past three weeks as the middleman between his neighborhood and several others, using his job in food distribution as cover to pass messages. Verbal messages were easiest, as long as they could avoid the nano drones hovering overhead. He was never sure whether shorthand cods were understood by recipients, but that means the bots had a less likely chance of understanding it as well.

Paper, though. Paper was evidence, evidence to be selectively distributed and rapidly burned. Better than digital, of course, especially with the increased surveillance.

But he’d seen enough death the past few weeks to last a lifetime – and didn’t know how to avoid more other than playing within the rules. And those hard won rules, paid in human lives, said to burn paper as fast as you could after memorizing the message.

He wasn’t even sure how long he could stand carrying messages, if it weren’t for his desperation for other signs of resistance.

“Mrs. Ingleson,” he murmured. Their landlady had given up on freedom with a strange joy. Apparently her desire to tell others what to do and manifested in delight at being given orders as well. She’s even taken to popping in unexpectedly to most of the neighborhood houses, which were now required to have unlocked doors for easy enemy access. They’d only lasted a week with a supposedly sticking doorknob, before a formal warning to fix it had arrived.

“Then memorize it now. You need to see this. If it’s what I think – but I’m afraid to become overly excited at this point.“ Helga looked fragile, running her fingers acrossher cheekbones.

George took a look at the damp paper, cheap ink running onto his fingers, expecting his hopes to be dashed once more. His eyes widened.

“And we’ve been focused on the battery packs,” he breathed.

“What was it that movie said,” and Helga’s grin lit up the room far more than the single candle left burning at the kitchen table. “‘No one can stop the signal’?”

“Get to work.” George playfully sweated her rear as she headed for the stairs to the attic workshop, which officially didn’t exist anymore and never had if anyone came asking.

As he laced up his work boots, George’s anxiety returned, with acid waves sloshing inside his stomach. The tech equipment that Helga had supposedly lost on a boating trip wouldn’t survive much longer, not with supplies running low. He’d made sure they both tossed a few broken pieces of equipment into a nearby pond so the bot wouldn’t detect it as a lie, but now wondered if that had been a terrible waste after the initial invasion panic.

Still, George had no doubt that between his current ability to leave the neighborhood – heavily supervised, of course – and Helga‘s past job, let alone her current tinkering, they were on some sort of list. Maybe even multiple lists.

And that was before that nosy parker of a landlady came into the picture.

It was only a matter of time.

It might have been his imagination that day at work, but George was increasingly uncomfortable by the amount of attention from the crew of guard bots. If they were gathering evidence…No, if they were at that point already, he would simply disappear. As it was, his shift’s mandatory four-hour extension to the city’s food distribution center – normally an opportunity to pass intel, though today he didn’t dare – meant he fell into bed beside Helga, too exhausted to disturb his sleeping wife.

He opened blurry eyes to find her already downstairs. He dragged the covers back and made his way to the kitchen, following the scent of something annoyingly green and grassy.

Today, however, the candle remained unlit. And there was no covertly printed newsletter, because the food delivery had skipped their house. That was no fluke after the watch-boys’ heavy scrutiny yesterday, and a terrible sign for their continued longevity.

There was, however, a small computer board of the type George never had quite understood, with a few wires and buttons attached to it. The kind that could get them killed if their traitorous landlady burst in…and the only thing that gave them a glimmer of survival.

“Food distribution is getting worse.” Helga’s eyes were dancing.

“Apologies, my lady. We are the enemy, after all.“ George went to the tea kettle and positioned himself sideways at the window, watching for the bots. He raised the steaming mug and toasted her.

In the distance, thumping footsteps began.

“Give it a few minutes.“ Her eyes were downright sparkling now. “I believe humans might be necessary after all. Despite our pending obsolescence.“

The mechanical booms grew closer. It wasn’t just one today on patrol, no mere guard meant for general intimidation.

He swallowed. “Better get moving.“

She pressed an unobtrusive white button at the side of the delicate microchip board and pressed her lips together until they turned pale.

As one, the armed robots that had just entered their street, stamped in unison and halted.

A speaker crackled. “WE INTERRUPT THIS WAR WITH THESE MESSAGES FROM OUR SPONSOR.”

A familiar jingle began playing, tinny and somehow the least annoying version of the song that he’d ever heard.

When George finally stopped laughing, he turned to Helga. “Can’t stop it “

“No.“ she let out a wicked grin. “Can’t stop it, but I certainly can hijack that signal and loop it through 100 years of bad television commercials.”

“And infomercials,” he said thoughtfully.

“What happens when they get to the one where the elderly woman falls, and can’t get off the floor?”

“Already ahead of you,” Helga said with grim delight. “They’re never getting up again. I’ve made that one a command.”

***

I couldn’t resist this spare: “WE INTERRUPT THIS WAR…”

Check out more or play along, over at MOTE!

Softly Falling Snow

January 15, 2025 / fionagreywrites

When he first saw the cottage, it was sitting in the midst of a snowy landscape. There wasn’t much about it that was obviously special, unless you appreciated the small marks of craftsmanship and effort that had gone into its construction, and evidence of hand-hewn logs wasn’t obvious until the observer grew close.

Even then, in the midst of softly falling snow that had him hurrying for the door, Walter had a brushing thought flit through his mind. Surely, it had taken a great deal of effort to drag the logs to this mountaintop location, three hundred feet above the tree line.

Whoever had gone to such effort had clearly appreciated the view, which stretched across the entire range of snowy peaks before shading into the deeper lines of winter-dusted pines. The large picture window, perfectly positioned to capture the rising sun, and the cabin’s lone rocking chair were evidence of that.

And that same person, he quickly realized, was not a fan of cold, despite the locale; the fireplace and wood stove combined with a lack of drafts to warm the cabin quickly. Meanwhile, a heavy handmade rug and thick curtains gave the cabin’s owner the opportunity to block that same lovely view once darkness followed the snow.

It was a place, Walter came to understand, where every decision had been made with great care. A shelf at the perfect height, positioned next to the toaster, gave a resting spot for the all-necessary coffee while he loomed over the appliance impatiently. A knife to spread the butter was in the first drawer he’d tried, exactly the logical place.

The picture window turned out to be doubled-paned, and a knit wool blanket strapped to the bottom of the rocker, while the bedroom light was exactly the perfect shade of indoor glow to read before settling into sleep.

Outdoors, a clothesline at arm-height allowed him to reach the woodpile without getting lost despite a blinding blizzard, and a nook on the porch to tuck away a large stash without a pile of logs spilling onto the porch.

Despite his trepidation on the way up, he’d found that trees overreached parts of the winding drive, blocking most of the snow from the west. For plowing, an ATV with a small front attachment hid out of sight in a garage. That garage mimicked the cabin’s aesthetic – and was connected to the cabin via a closed tunnel, so a trip into town kept the chill away until absolutely necessary.

Yes, Walter thought with satisfaction as he watched the sunrise, it was the perfect cabin. He understood, now, the owner’s insistence that he spend a week here.

He’d never be able to love this bucolic vision quite as much as the owner who was reluctantly selling it, forced to move into town after a bad fall left him largely immobile.

But he though there might be room enough, perhaps, for a second rocking chair.

***

This week’s prompt was from AC Young, about the first glimpse of a cabin in the snow – and while I’m not sure where this story came from, exactly, I might revisit this world again. (It won’t be soon, though; I’m likely to be offline for a bit the next few weeks.)

My prompt went to Becky – what regrets might you have, if you’re the last one to do something before it all goes wrong? Check it out – and more! – over at MOTE v2.025.

Downpour

January 15, 2025 / fionagreywrites

Ante tugged her hood tighter for the fortieth time in fifteen minutes, despite the futility. “High tech waterproof jacket, my left foot.”

Her words were drowned out by the roar of the raging waterfall that had swollen to a size she could no longer cross safely. The downpour had come without warning, and what had promised to be a sprinkle had left the usual riverside path slick with mud.

She turned on the slippery rocks and gave a wistful look toward the narrow crack where she’d stashed the plas-wrapped techbow the ship’s regs allowed on new colonies, but she’d already tried to squeeze inside the tiny gap. The best result had been a miserable failure, though she’d only given up after nearly falling into the rapids.

At least her weapon would stay safe, if not precisely dry; she’d found on past planetside tours that even modern version of the archaic hunting tools didn’t handle water well.

No, better to turn around and go back, given that she was already drenched and covered in a combination of sticky wet clay and the mud ubiquitous to this planet. It would have been easier, had the hood stayed stiff enough to keep the rain out of her eyes.

“Ach, stop whinging over a wee bit o’ rain,” she said, mimicking her favorite adopted uncle. “Get a-movin’, lass.”

Ante made her way back to the path, gaze on her footing. The rain was a welcome surprise, as long as it didn’t last much more than a day; anything more would ruin the crops and they’d pass the colony half-prepped, only to move to the next base and start the cycle regardless. But the weather-sat clearly was malfunctioning again, and she hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come.

There’d been stories, last posting, of soldiers left behind, when things started to go wrong. She raised a worried gaze toward the sky, hoping for a glimpse of the ship she’d spent most of her life upon.

That’s when the path gave way, and she tumbled through a series of trees and slid through buckets of fresh mud, landing with an oomph at the bottom of a ravine. It was a lovely glen, with canopy trees that interlocked for shelter, and even a powder-fruit bush that still held berries.

There was only one problem with the location that she could see…if she was where she thought after her unexpected detour, the river hadn’t been there yesterday. The downpour might be enough to make her miserable and boost the familiar waterways, but this was a well-established river, deep enough it should have shown on the sat-map she held in trembling hands.

There was only one thing a brand new river could mean.

She was lost.

***

This week’s prompt came from Becky: There was only one problem with the location that she could see… the river hadn’t been there yesterday.

Mine went to Leigh: It was peaceful, until the bachelor herd came through.

Check out more, over at MOTE!

Moon Girls

April 5, 2022 / fionagreywrites

“What’s a California?” Izz idly asked her ship’s AI. She spun a disc in her hands before running a finger over the purple label.

“A defunct state in North America on Earth, now underwater after the earthquake of 3142. Its former location will pass under the viewport in seven hours, two minutes.” Greave’s voice was comfortingly robotic. Enough to pass for non-sentient when they encountered the next port inspection team.

Izz tossed the ancient tech into the pile of potential funds and moved onto a bookshelf next to a dirty porthole. “So a California girl is just someone who lived there.”

“The holodisc may display stereotypical images if you can find a player under all this dust.”

“Ooo, an old respirator, nice. And yeah, this base is filthy, but it’s got some great artifacts buried under all the mess. Anyway, can’t you do it? Play the vid?”

“I suppose,” Greaves answered with obvious reluctance. And let out a distinctly unrobotic sneeze.

***

A snippet inspired by Leigh Kimmel’s challenge. My prompt went to nother Mike, who walked on the wild side. Join the fun at MOTE!

Famous Last Words

December 15, 2021 / fionagreywrites

It wouldn’t have escalated if they hadn’t gone after my cat.

You know how it is when things start to get out of hand. One minute, all’s well, and the next, well, you’re standing in your yard screaming you don’t give a damn so loud you don’t recognize your own voice.

Let me start over.

It all began with a gift from my mother-in-law. See, Mom used to work at this doll factory, where they hand painted the faces. And frankly, I find those soulless bright blue eyes pretty creepy. Even toured the factory once when we visited. Identical faces, no matter which way you look, whether it’s a moose or a mouse. But that’s how we wound up with Satan’s souvenirs. You wouldn’t believe how fast I packed those things up as soon as we got home.

But it was Christmas, and it’s once a year, and my husband likes them, and what the hell. It was a gift. I could take it for a few weeks. We so rarely decorate, and this year was kind of a bummer to start with. If it made him happy, that was all that mattered. I’d just tuck those little suckers in the corner.

So there went Rudolph, minus the red nose. The black fuzzy ball was falling off anyway, dangling by a thread, and I couldn’t wait for the cat to eat it. I tried to rename the little guy Blitzen, but my true thoughts came through when I called him Blitzkrieg instead.

And in front of Rudolph, drunken dancing Santa balanced on one curved leg, hand waving a cane, dressed in motheaten purple velvet and with a floppy top hat covering most of that terrible unblinking face. The nearby tree counted as a distraction, since it had LED lights so bright you could see them from space. You could barely watch the TV over the glow, although that might be because the tree was all of eighteen inches tall and wrapped in lights so thick the branches were obliterated.

Anyway. It slowed down for a few days, and I was able to mostly forget those bizarre toys were there. The tree got knocked over a few times, but that’s what cats do. Until I came down one morning and stared. After a minute, I got some coffee, then crept closer, steaming cup in hand, still gazing at the scene in front of me.

See, Santa was riding Rudolph, right in front of the dark and silent television, and my husband swore it wasn’t him. The cat was all poofy-tailed and hid most of the day, and it’s not like she had the manual dexterity to do it. Or the sense of humor, frankly. Kitty’s intense about her belly rubs, thank you.

So I shook my finger at them, tucked them back in their corner, and thought nothing more of it. Until, of course, the next morning.

“You’re sure this isn’t a variation of elf on a shelf?” I couldn’t stop asking, even though I could see my husband’s face twisting in annoyance after the third time. But what else was I supposed to think? Santa and Generic Reindeer had been in our usual seats, and the TV was tuned to the Hallmark Channel.

“I’m warning you guys.” I put the Duo of Doom back into their corner and pushed them closer toward the wall, behind the chair. “It’s not funny.”

The next morning, I tripped coming out of the bedroom and nearly fell down the stairs. Wrenched my shoulder grabbing the bannister at the last minute, and the rug burn and bruises aren’t a ton of fun, either. But mostly I remember screaming when I found myself facing two laughing, vacant, blue-eyed terrors.

My husband rolled his eyes and pointed out the cat had been known to carry things to our doorstep before. “An early Christmas present.”

“Sure,” I muttered, but I didn’t believe it. These wireframe nightmares were as big as she was. Besides, Kitty was still haunting the basement, low to the ground and stalking when she had to come upstairs for food. I dropped a dish that day, and she bolted out of the kitchen so fast she was a furry feline meteorite.

Breakfast was aspirin and coffee that morning, and then I chucked those painted demons into the corner. Rudolph and Santa landed in a tangled heap, and I didn’t care if I never saw them again. The smack they made was satisfying, let me tell you.

I made my husband leave the bedroom first the next morning, just in case. He opened the door, and even cleared the stairs for me. He’s a good one. But he didn’t notice they weren’t in the living room where Santa’s confused and drunken reign of terror should have been, probably because they were supposed to be properly hidden.

Which meant I was the one who found Father Frakking Christmas and the Reindeer from Hell on the stove. With the gas burner flaming merrily blue, a marshmallow toasting on Santa-the-drum-major’s half-melted plastic mace, as if they weren’t made of felt and highly flammable.

This time, I growled. And then I hid them in the oven, where they couldn’t escape.

I probably looked like a crazy person. I know I felt like one, especially trying to explain it when the muffins suddenly didn’t fit on the oven rack. Hubby sent me for a massage, poured me a glass of wine – I told you he was a good one – and suggested I go to bed early.

And all that stress came slamming back with nightmares of those damn blue eyes, off key bells mixed with yodeling so loud Switzerland would have given up its vaunted neutrality to make the affront to good taste and hearing stop. Until I woke up and realized the yowling of my dreams was very, very real.

And my poor black tabby was wearing Deer Jerky’s jingle bell bridle.

Well. I don’t quite remember what happened next, upon the advice of my lawyer. I can tell you that it all seemed quite reasonable at the time, and that everyone in the family made it out of the house safely before it blew. Even the cat.

Sometimes, it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to solve a problem, but it’s like vacuuming for a few minutes after you suck up the spider, just to make sure it’s dead. But as counsel mentioned, I’m sure that’s an unrelated tangent.

This time, it wasn’t so hard to say goodbye to the house, or to move onto the next chapter of my life. I hope my future doesn’t include jail. But whatever happens, I have a few last words.

Next year, we’re skipping Christmas.

***

I don’t think that’s what Leigh Kimmel expected when this week’s prompt was supposed to be inspired by Billy Joel’s “Famous Last Words” song…my prompt went to Cedar Sanderson: “The belladonna tasted like bitter blueberry and regret.”

Join the fun over at More Odds Than Ends!

Hidden Journeys

November 24, 2021 / fionagreywrites

Leila clenched the steering wheel with cramped fingers, wondering when the stabbing pain between her shoulderblades would stop. Not until she got a massage, probably, as if she had that kind of time or money. A hot bath would have to do, and even that an unaffordable indulgence. Not with half her life packed into the back of an SUV she’d just barely paid off before getting the news.

Position made redundant. Blah, blah, legalese. Stay a month and get severance. Agree to transfer south and take a pay cut, and keep being employed by an unreliable company teetering on failure every week. But she’d jumped at the chance to get closer to family, a lower cost of living, especially when she was the most mobile of her branch.

Being single had some benefits, she supposed.

“Focus,” she muttered out loud. A snort came from the passenger seat, then the thump of a tail wag before easing back into peaceful sleep. Glen had conked out hours ago, when daylight made the drive a pleasure and the potential of something new floated tangibly, excited sparks dancing in the air.

She’d blame the spots on a migraine aura now, given the pulsing between her temples. But who’d have known the light rain predicted would turn into such a disaster as soon as it grew dark? The rain had brought fog, and not a gentle rising mist, but great swirling puffy cotton-ball clouds of it, so thick Leila could almost feel them against her skin.

It would have been just as dangerous to pull off the road, even if there’d been a place to do it. She could barely tell where the lines of faded paint were, and followed truckers at reckless speed on the assumption they had better situational awareness than her failing sight could permit. Exits flashed by with no warning, popping out of fog too late to change direction.

Cold came sweeping next. Freezing rain, and that’s when the tension in her neck started. It’d taken an hour to roll down to her shoulderblades, the stabbing so strong now that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see wings sprout in the rearview mirror.

If she could take her eyes off the road that long, that was. The last of the truckers’ taillights had faded into the midnight hours ages ago, and even her poor mutt had abandoned her.

A whine from the seat next to her brought a pang of guilt. “Sorry, Glen. I know you’re still here.” She’d normally scratch his silky ears, but didn’t want to take her hand off the wheel. “Guess the south has more snow that we expected.”

It had floated down, silent after torrential rain and frozen drops of percussive peril that had slammed with disconcerting alacrity against her windshield. Huge crystal flakes, shining merrily in the few streetlights this highway maintained, piling up on the hood in quantities sufficient to strain her abused windshield wipers.

Glen whined again. “Sorry, boy. I have to go, too. Hang on a couple more minutes, ‘kay?”

GPS said there was a rest stop coming up. Leila squinted at the road and yawned. It didn’t matter. She needed sleep soon whether or not she had a safe place to pull over. “Unless zombies attack us, we’re almost there.”

He barked at the word zombies, and she grinned. She’d used an app to convince herself to run more, and one of them had a zombie chase mode for incentive. They’d both lost weight running from the apocalyptic horde.

A bump, and they crested onto a gentle upward curve. A bridge, the edges of the metal already covered in inches of snow, barely visible. There was only darkness below, but she assumed the lake was frozen.

“Almost there,” Leila said again. She was trying to convince herself the bridge wasn’t slick beneath the SUV’s original tires. “Just keep going straight.”

The steering wheel was slick with sweat beneath her palms by the time they made it into the parking lot. Business taken care of for dog and human, Leila crashed in her car and hoped the snow would insulate rather than trap her inside.

Bells woke her the next morning, and Glen barking. “M’up.” Maybe she could get coffee inside the rest stop. Hot coffee, that would take the chill away. Cold coffee would be reserved for whomever was making that dastardly noise, too early.

Leila squinted against the sun’s glare as she got out of the SUV and let the dog do his business nearby. Her jaw dropped.

Gone was the rest stop. In its place, a town square in early Colonial style, with women in long skirts and hand-woven knits, carrying the day’s shopping in wicker baskets. Men were in hats without fail, most dressed formally in long coats. There were no cars in the square, but plenty of bells upon a magnificent sleigh that belonged in a museum, and an ingenious farm cart with wheels locked onto runners, sliding over the new-fallen snow.

No one seemed surprised by horse-drawn vehicles.

There was not a cell phone, a power line, or a transmission tower to be seen.

And Leila had never heard such quiet.

She spun around, looking for the bridge she’d crossed, only to be greeted with a bustling pier bursting with red-faced fishermen.

The urge to be sick overcame her, and she fought it off with dizziness. Glen barked and leaned against her legs, pushing her back against the car. “Goobo,” she mumbled, and tried again. “Good boy.”

Leila struggled to pull in deep breaths. Smoke from cooking fires wafted through the air, burning unaccustomed lungs. And some odors she’d rather not think about much until she really needed the restroom she’d been dreading this morning.

Or the privy, as she suspected this crowd might call it…

***

This week’s prompt was from Leigh Kimmel: As you drive down the highway, the snow becomes steadily heavier. When it clears, everything looks different and you realize you’re now far from anything familiar.

Mine went to Cedar Sanderson: The proof was in the taser.

Join More Odds Than Ends! It’s both free and welcoming.

The Last Normal Day

June 7, 2021 / fionagreywrites

The morning after the messenger’s dramatic arrival and collapse dawned chill and gloomy. Ralph was overdue to return to the Great Library, but it wasn’t clear whether Miranda would let him leave. For a over a decade now, he’d brought her books on the histories and folklore, without a clue that she was the missing aetheling who’d fought in the wars.

And in a single moment of just a few minutes, she’d broken her cover in front of the one person who she’d permitted to transit her territory. A person with an insatiable quest knowledge combined with the appetite to talk. She had no idea whether he even had the ability to keep secrets. Bookwyrms certainly weren’t known for their locked snouts, even to protect their knowledge hordes.

Movement from the open kitchen window meant she was out of time. Ralph was awake.

A thump, and she bit off a quiet curse from the training ring’s soft ground. Greystone had gotten a good blow in while she’d been distracted. She blinked up at the sky and gestured toward her home. “He’s up.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Greystone replied. “You and I know there are few reasons why a Royal Messenger would arrive here exhausted. And you made sure he’d be asleep until at least noon.”

He reached a hand covered in silky grey fur down to her. His humanoid form had some limitations, but she’d always loved the fact that he got to keep his claws. She put her hand in his and let him help her back to her feet.

“It’s hard not to be distracted.” She blew out a huge breath that pushed him back a step. It would have been surprisingly large – especially given the hint of smoke that came with it – had she been human rather than a shapeshifted dragon.

“Once the messenger wakes, everything changes.” His words were quiet. “You know that. Today is the most normal day of the rest of your life.”

She squared her shoulders and raised her hands to the guard position. The black and white speckled snout now poked from the window, inquisitive nostrils quivering, and she ignored it or the unanswered questions. “Then what are we waiting for?”

***

I forgot to submit a writing prompt last week, so I snagged a spare. This one was “Today is the most normal day of the rest of your life.” That said, several ideas sparked with other spares, too. I like the challenge of an assigned prompt, but might have to to pay more deliberate attention in the future.

Interested in playing along? Check out Odd Prompts for more!

Engineers!

December 28, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Nigel sat on the concrete floor and studied the mess of broken machinery in front of him. Gears, cogs, sprockets, and unidentifiable doohickeys were scattered in piles between his legs.

“There’s clearly some sort of order to where you put the parts,” Elise said. She leaned down and pushed her ponytail back over her shoulder, trying not to get grease smeared onto her leather jacket. “I can’t tell what it is, though.”

“Blocking my light,” he mumbled, then looked up, blinking. “Oh. Sorry. Rude?”

She straightened and stepped to the left, trying not to roll her eyes. She took a deep breath of the damp air and suppressed a sigh. “Yes, rude.”

“Have to get it working again,” he said, hands fidgeting over the parts. Stubby fingers flickered faster than she would have believed possible. Each movement he made was deliberate and precise. “Each pile goes into its own section. Here, hold this for me.”

She snorted and moved back to lean against the wall. She propped a foot against it for balance, concrete rough and cool under her fingertips. “I most certainly will not. That – thing – is what got us in the dungeon in the first place.”

He propped a long metal rod against his ankle instead. “Not a dungeon.”

“It’s a locked, windowless room in the basement. And we’re stuck here until the other bots outside go away, lose interest, or calls for more of those things to come help. I’m just glad we control the deadbolt. It’s close enough to a dungeon to count.”

“Horseshoes.” Nigel’s brow furrowed, his eyes darkening. He spilled the piles of gadgetry from their towers of precarious balance with a sweep of an arm. His nose nearly touched the ground as he chose new parts. “Bad design.”

Elise sighed. She had to draw an engineer as her partner. Every single time, it seemed like. “It was a reasonable argument that close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and dungeons. Just give me that one, would you? And what’s this about bad design?”

She crossed her fingers and made a wish, as if she were seven again and arguing with her younger brother. Iftheir backup didn’t show up soon, Nigel would want to stay here until he fixed that thing.

“I improved it. Much more efficient this way.” He grinned at her, the spark back in his eyes. A squat finger hovered over a red button.

She pushed her foot against the wall and lunged for him. A beep halfway there told her she was too late. He’d started the blasted thing up again. She turned her lunge into a painful somersault and rolled onto her feet. Drawing her knives, she faced the machine that had chased them inside the room.

“It works!” he crowed. He scooted away from its treads, alarm flickering over his face.

Her shoulder throbbed. She wondered if a good stomp of her combat boot would do the trick? Was she fast enough to get past the whirring saw blades? “You know, you could have considered not fixing the tiny death machine, right?”

“Improving.” Nigel sniffed, and wedged himself into the corner.

***

This prompt has stymied me for far too long! I work with a LOT of engineers, and reality kept intruding. B. Durbin challenged me nearly a year ago with the following:

“According to Milton, the road to Heaven is rocky and narrow. The road to Hell is broad and well-paved. Therefore, we know which way all the engineers go.” (Professor Michael Bonin to engineering student Ron Palmer, attribution not part of the prompt.)

TE Kinsey’s latest cozy reminded me that engineers love to share information, even when they shouldn’t…and they also like to fix things. Even when they really, really shouldn’t.

Exhaustion

December 22, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Kerri slammed open the wooden door with a bang, tumbled through, and settled into a boneless heap on the stone floor. Her mate found her there an hour later, eyes closed and a wisp of smoke escaping her left nostril with every snore he’d never dare admit she made.

Not if he wanted to stay mated, anyway.

“Baby.” Mike nudged her with a gentle claw. “Baby, come to the nest at least. I brought you a whole cow, and the sand is the perfect toasty temperature you like if you want to get cleaned up.” He devoutly hoped she’d want the sand bath. Her blue-green scales were covered in irregular smudges of soot.

“M’exhausted,” she mumbled. A single eye blinked at him several times, exposing a gold and green streaked iris. The eyelid slid ninety percent closed. “M’up.”

He suppressed a grin, not that she would notice right now. “I can see the first one. Come on, upsidaisy. I got you.” He folded his wings back and shoved his foreleg under her feeble wiggle.

She yawned, fangs pearlescent even in the dim light. Her tongue flickered out, her eyes still half-closed and head swaying. “Food?”

“Food,” Mike said in a soothing tone. “A whole cow, just for you. You have to keep up your energy.”

“Sleep,” Kerri slurred. “Need sleep.” She curled her long neck against his, then nuzzled her snout against his. He could feel her weight leaning heavier against his side and twitched his wing back further.

“Food, then sleep,” Mike reassured her. “After all, you have to teach flame control again tomorrow. For about the next six weeks. And then they start flying not long after that. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”

Well, that woke her. Kerri’s roar must have been heard a block away. He had wanted to stay mated, hadn’t he?

Of course he did. That’s why he shoved a terrified, bleating heifer in the direction of the snarls and ran out the door.

***

This weeks’ Odd Prompt came from nother Mike: “It was always a proud day when another young dragon first blew flame across the room, but it did make teaching elementary school classes for young dragons hard on teachers.”

Mine went to Becky Jones, “I got him!” She waved her prize in the air and wiggled her hips, grinning at her mentor. He gave her a wistful smile, wishing they were as safe as she clearly believed. “I’m afraid they hunt in packs.”

Meteorite

December 16, 2020 / fionagreywrites

The metal candleholder quickly lost its warmth as she left the temple’s tended fires. Lady Elsa headed down the wide stone stairs and headed for the garden. Her free hand chilled where air met her exposed hand, sheltering the emerging yellow flame. It flickered with each rapid step, evening dew soaking into her slippers as she deviated off the pebbled gravel path.

Each novice went alone for their attempt, but they knew the way. She could feel the eyes upon her with each hasty step. Adrenaline spiked her pace still faster, her breathing ragged.

Her feet were soggy and cold by the time Elsa reached her goal. She paused at the arch before entering and set the candle in the empty holder before kicking off her shoes. A deep breath and a hitch of wet skirt away from her ankle, and she plunged through the ivy into darkness.

And entered for the first time, into light. Floating sparkles traced colorful paths across the sky, while glowing flowers spun purple and green bioluminescence into the shadows. A drop of ivy dripped a trail of water, and starlight sparkled as it shattered onto the ground like diamonds.

She stared upward, enraptured by pale grey streaks of moonlight, which broke through the spaces between the darkened leaves. Strands of gold dust swirled around her raised hands, and she broke into a delighted laugh.

Floating with joy, Elsa turned and bowed to an alcove where a figure was obscured among the shimmer, hidden along the wall amidst leaf and bough. “Lady of Star and Shadow.”

The statue remained still and cold, but a bright light echoed from behind the statue’s head. A blackened figure towered over the temple maiden. Elsa crumpled to her knees in a collapsed curtsy of wet skirts and bare feet. She had nearly forgotten. “Forgive me, Lady of the Moon.”

She reached into her beltpurse and drew out the multicolored rock that served as her offering. “I bring you your child of fire and blazing glory, returning to you the lost children of the stars.”

***

I think this one might go further, sometime, but the world isn’t quite clear yet. I don’t think Lady Elsa is the main character, at least not as a novice. Thanks to Leigh Kimmel for this week’s Odd Prompt: “Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.” My suggestion went to Cedar Sanderson, that an infestation of baby dragons was not as desirable as one might imagine…

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